Digital Photography 101 - Aliasing

Digital photography has a lot of confusing vocabulary words- one of which is aliasing

. So, what is aliasing? It's a common word that's found in digital stuff like video games, CGI and photography but most people don't really understand what it means. When it comes to digital photography, anti-aliasing is a feature found on most digital cameras that you'll soon realize is something that you'll always want to use

The Basics About Pixels

Pixels are really the basic square units that make up a digital image. When you look at your digital images and zoom in a few times, you'll find that the closer you get, the more "blocky" the image appears. This look is caused because when the digital picture is increased in size the individual pixels become more pronounced.

The resolution of your camera (often called the mega pixel value) is directly related to the number of individual pixels your camera can take in a single frame. The higher the resolution, the more pixels you get. More pixels will result in smoother lines - think of how a staircase may look blocky up close, but at great distance may look more like a diagonal line. This is how pixels work to create shapes in an image.

Understanding Aliasing

When you look at your image and see the pixels that make up the edges of round or diagonal lines this is aliasing. When the pixels are in only one color, the lines will look more jagged and noticeable. You may not notice this initially if the pixel is surrounded by other similar colors, but as the colors increase in contrast the pixel will appear more pronounced.

Aliasing is not usually obvious unless an image has been taken at a very low resolution. Luckily, most digital cameras these days take pictures at resolutions that make aliasing difficult to see under normal conditions, however it can be seen as soon as the image is enlarged. All digital photographs have some level of aliasing, no matter how good the camera may be.

So What is Anti-Aliasing?

Anti-aliasing lets the colors at the edge of the pixels bleed into one another therefore eliminating the affect of aliasing. It may sound counter intuitive, but blurring the edges of each individual pixel will result in sharper images with smoother lines and more natural color differentiation.

To test this out, take one of your digital images and reduce it in size. This will cause the lines of objects in the pictures to look smoother as the size of the picture decreases in size. As the picture pixels get smaller, they become less noticed. This reduction in size of your picture, is similar to the effect of anti-aliasing because it slightly blurs each pixel allowing it to better blend into the rest of the image.

Most good digital cameras will come with a built in anti-aliasing feature so your pictures won't have the "blocky" look. Anti-aliasing will help make your pictures look more natural and will help minimize the quality loss of your picture by using a lower resolution camera. Although it is always good idea to shoot at the highest resolution possible, anti-aliasing will help to make sure your images look great.

Although you may not have realized how important anti-aliasing was before, once you understand the impact on your pictures you won't want to shoot without it. Anti-aliasing really helps to bridge the gap between expensive super high resolution cameras and the price of the average digital camera by eliminating the rough, jagged lines of aliasing. If your camera has an anti-aliasing function, make sure to always have it on and your pictures will certainly thank you.

by: Autumn Lockwood

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